With Intel's withdrawal from the low-end desktop market, they have now added i946 Chipset to their offerings to replace it. It is a more expensive, but more feature-rich, chipset that will include the new ICH7 southbridge starting in the first half of 2006. This will come at the same time as the release of the ICH8 southbridge and 965 chipset, keeping the 946 relegated to a midlevel range. Both of these new chipsets have specific goals in mind.

"The full-line of Broadwater chipsets will be built using 90nm process technology and are aimed at pushing forward migration to DDR2 memory and dual-core CPU architecture, the sources noted."
Intel is also expanding current chipsets, adding the GT for micro form factor and GZ for embedded series to the popular 945 chipset, the first Intel chipset to support dual-core processors.